Recovery Best Wishes

I wanted to make a card for my brother-in-law who was taken ill suddenly eight weeks ago.  He has made amazing progress since it happened and may well be allowed home soon.  It helps that my sister is a qualified nurse of 30 years.  I didn't feel that the sentiment 'Get Well Soon' was suitable under the circumstances, so decided on 'Hope you're up and around soon'.  As he has a sense of humour and was airlifted to hospital by the Scottish air ambulance service while he and my sister were on holiday in Skye, I thought I'd create a focal image which would be a play on the words of the sentiment.  The inside reads ... but not by air ambulance this time!

I worked on a 14.8cm x 14.8cm white base card and having found some bright lime green card in my scrap box, cut it down to 13.8cm x 13.8cm.  A piece of dark green wood patterned paper (another scrap box find) was used for the mat (14.3cm x 14.3cm).

The first step was to die cut the Tim Holtz globe die (Sizzix 660214) and the three parts to the helicopter die from the transport die set (also Tim Holtz: Sizzix 660809) out of scrap watercolour card.  The globe die cut was coloured using Artistry ink in Pampas and Avocado and Claritystamp stencil brushes; one colour was brushed backwards and forwards in one direction and the second at a 90 degree angle to the other. I then went lightly around the edge with a blending tool and Camel Safari Artistry ink.
For the mat, I die cut the 10.5cm diameter circle from the nested circles set by Tonic Studios out of an off cut of mixed media card.  Once again I used stencil brushes in two directions to brush Ocean Reef and Tenacious Teal Artistry ink across the die cut.  I finished with a light brushing over of Camel Safari to tie in with the top layer.  Once the two layers were matted up they toned in beautifully together.
I also used Camel Safari on the bottom layer of the helicopter, Blaze Artistry ink on the body and Graphite Metallic Gilding Polish over the rotors.  The three layers were matted up using Wacky Tack adhesive.
The helicopter was then added to the globe.  

Once I was happy with the focal image, I laid it over the background where I wanted it to go and drew lightly around it with a pencil.  This provided a guide for the stamping.  I mounted all the letters that I needed to stamp the sentiment onto Claritystamp Mini Mounts, as these provide more control over positioning, and stamped the sentiment around the outside of the pencil line using Coffee Archival ink.  The pencil line was then erased.
It only remained to add the globe and mount the whole piece onto the base card.